The present invention pertains to vehicle visors, and particularly to visors with covered vanity mirrors.
Vehicle visors which include vanity mirrors, with or without illumination, have become increasingly popular vehicle accessories, and in fact, are standard equipment on many vehicles sold in the United States and other countries. When a visor including such a vanity mirror is in the lowered sun blocking position, the vanity mirror, if uncovered, provides a reflective surface which can be used by the vehicle occupant as a vanity mirror but also can be an annoying distraction to the driver or passenger when it is not desired to use the vanity mirror. This results due to random light reflections from outside objects and lights moving in relation to the vehicle.
In order to allow comfortable use of visors having vanity mirrors, a variety of cover constructions have been devised for covering the mirror and preventing such distractions as well as providing an additional safety factor in covering the frangible mirror itself. With the advent of modern materials for mirrors including laminated glass, plastic, adhesive backings and the like, the safety aspect of the cover with respect to preventing flying mirror fragments if there is an accident, is less of a concern since the newer materials are either unbreakable or do not generate glass shards in the event of an impact. Thus the importance of the cover in recent years has been more decorative or to cover the mirror to prevent distraction due to moving reflective images including light from the driver's eyes or the occupant's eyes.
A variety of different vanity mirror covers for visors have been proposed including a pivoted cover such as disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,227,241 and covers which pivot from the lower edge of the mirror as well. Other visors may include vanity mirrors which are covered with a sliding cover such as disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,648,011. Another approach is for the vanity mirror itself to retract within the body of the visor as for example disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,486,819. All of these cover designs provide a vanity mirror which may or may not be illuminated, which is readily accessible for use and which is covered when not in use when the visor is in a lowered sun blocking position. Such construction, however, requires the additional costs of providing a separate cover mounting mechanism and assembly expense of the mechanical cover.